Medieval Fortresses: Carcassonne, Château Gaillard

Carcassonne: The Perfect Medieval City

Approaching Carcassonne from across the Aude plain, visitors witness what appears to be a medieval fantasy made stone. The double walls bristle with 52 towers, creating Europe's largest fortified city. Yet this apparent unity masks two millennia of construction, destruction, and reinvention.

The inner wall's foundation dates to the Gallo-Roman period, its small, regular stones revealing ancient origins. The Visigoths added their own fortifications, some towers still showing their characteristic horseshoe arches. But Carcassonne's great walls primarily date from the 13th century, when French royal power asserted itself over the rebellious south.

After the Albigensian Crusade, Louis IX and Philip III transformed Carcassonne into an impregnable fortress. The outer wall, separated from the inner by wide lists (open spaces), created a killing ground for any attacker who breached the first defense. The towers were designed for active defense—arrow slits at multiple levels, machicolations for dropping stones or boiling liquids, and fighting platforms connected by wall walks.

Living Fortress

Medieval Carcassonne wasn't merely military architecture but a living city. Within the walls, narrow streets wound between houses, shops, and workshops. The castle within the castle—the comtal château—provided another layer of defense while serving as an administrative center and noble residence.

The basilica of Saint-Nazaire, begun in the 11th century, shows how sacred and military architecture intertwined. Its Romanesque nave provided spiritual fortification, while its Gothic choir and transepts, added in the 13th century, brought northern architectural elegance to this southern stronghold. The stained glass windows, among southern France's finest, transform the fortress church into a jewel box of light.

Viollet-le-Duc's Vision

By the 19th century, Carcassonne had become a ruin, its walls quarried for building stone, its towers roofless. Prosper Mérimée, inspector of historic monuments, recognized its importance, but it was Eugène Viollet-le-Duc who gave Carcassonne its current appearance.

Viollet-le-Duc's restoration (1853-1879) remains controversial. He didn't merely repair but reimagined Carcassonne as the ideal medieval fortress. The conical roofs he added to towers were northern French in style, inappropriate for Languedoc. His battlements and wall walks reflected 19th-century ideas of medieval warfare rather than historical reality.

Yet Viollet-le-Duc saved Carcassonne. Without his intervention, only fragments would remain. His restoration, however romanticized, preserved the essence of medieval military architecture while creating a monument that captures public imagination. Modern visitors experience not authentic medieval Carcassonne but a 19th-century dream of the Middle Ages—itself now historic and worth preserving.

Château Gaillard: Richard's Masterpiece

While Carcassonne evolved over centuries, Château Gaillard burst into existence in a single creative explosion. Richard the Lionheart built his "saucy castle" in just two years (1196-1198), incorporating every innovation in military architecture. Perched on chalk cliffs above the Seine, it guarded the approach to Rouen and challenged French expansion into Normandy.

Richard personally supervised construction, applying lessons learned from crusader castles. The concentric design—three baileys stepping up the ridge—forced attackers to capture each section separately. The inner bailey's corrugated wall, with its cylindrical projections, eliminated blind spots while providing multiple angles for defensive fire.

Innovation in Stone

Château Gaillard's most innovative feature was its donjon (keep). Instead of the traditional square or round tower, Richard designed a cylindrical tower with a projecting beak, like a ship's prow cutting through enemy assault. The walls, four meters thick at the base, incorporated sophisticated masonry techniques. The stones were cut with such precision that minimal mortar was needed, creating walls that have resisted eight centuries of weathering.

The castle's weakness lay not in its design but in medieval siege craft's evolution. In 1204, Philip Augustus captured Château Gaillard through a combination of blockade, mining, and an audacious assault through the latrines. The castle's fall marked the end of Normandy's independence and demonstrated that no fortress, however sophisticated, was impregnable.

Castle as Landscape

Both Carcassonne and Château Gaillard show how medieval military architecture shaped and was shaped by landscape. Carcassonne crowns its hill like a stone crown, visible for miles, proclaiming royal power over the conquered south. Château Gaillard seems to grow from its chalk cliffs, the white stone merging with the natural rock, making it difficult to determine where geology ends and architecture begins.

These fortresses also created new landscapes. The cleared zones around walls, kept free of trees and buildings, established sight lines that survive in modern urban planning. The villages that grew at castle feet developed characteristic patterns—narrow streets for defense, market squares near gates, churches in the shadow of secular power.